3 years!

Patrick and I celebrated our third anniversary on Wednesday night. We continued our tradition of wine, cheese, fruit and bread for dinner and listened to our wedding mix!

I picked the wine by the label - Red Rock - since we were married in Redgranite.

And of course our dinner attire!

Glad to report that my dress fits once again and James loved playing peekaboo under it :)

Here's to many more happy years together!

Cousins!

This week James and I spent Tuesday night into Wednesday at the cottage with Mom and Dad and Thomas and Josiah. The boys are in town visiting and instead of Grammy coming to Madison to babysit James - we went to them for a mini-vacation!

Josiah (almost 2), Thomas (4) and James (9months)

Tuesday night before bed the boys had "dunkers" with Buppa.  (Well James had a rice cake!) Anyway, this is a time honored tradition that TJ takes very seriously. Grammy had freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (on the plate) but TJ wanted "real dunkers" (store bought fake oreos!)

They dunk their cookies and count to 8 together (otherwise the cookies get too soggy) and then they eat them. And repeat, and repeat... :)

I don't have a great photo of the kid cave from this trip - but here are the boys enjoying it. 

James loves the soft blankets and rolled back and forth until he fell between the mattresses.

Thomas to the rescue!

Jojo bounced from bed to bed and I am pretty sure tested out each one before choosing where he was going to sleep. He was so proud to be in a big boy bed!

We also spent some time playing with Dad's train set. The tracks are set and now they are working on the city. Pictured here is the cattle car Mom got for her birthday. It is pretty cool!

The big boys and Buppa went on the Big Mable. Initially both said, "no way!" so James was going to go - then Thomas realized that if Jimmy James could do it, so could he!

About half way around the lake, Jojo decided to join them. So James watched from the boat!

Grammy and Buppa and the 3 boys - Mom says we are building a basketball team!

And some silly boys with mustaches!

Summer is FINALLY here!

We spent Father's Day weekend at the cottage and finally got to enjoy the summer weather!
 The water is still a bit chilly, but with the hot sun shining - it was refreshing :)

This was James' first time swimming and he did great!

"Aussie" James taking a ride on the pontoon boat next to Heidi --- he doesn't look pleased, but is more tired than anything else.  Relaxing at the cottage is exhausting!

Family photo -again, despite the picture, he did like it - I promise!

There is our little fish!

Andy and Patrick did their best to catch us dinner - here they are swimming out to the raft with their fishing equipment.

I think the cooler was to initially carry beverages, but then also served as a live well for the blue gills!

James and Buppa driving the boat!

Sunday morning I took James for a Kayak ride. He loves to stand at the front of the pontoon boat and feel the wind in his face, so I figured this would be a hit as well.  He LOVED it!

Another family photo - testing out the new "Big Mable" --- we didn't go too fast - James liked this too - though sitting in the squishy tube made his life jacket rise up around his chin... so he stood!

First time on the slide --- what a rush, and into the water no less!

As Patrick would say, "two gingers enjoying the sunshine!" 

Final picture of the weekend - Andy and Heidi are headed to Idaho for Ironman this week.

Good Luck Andy!

It was a great weekend for everyone to relax - next year Baby K will be in the photo as well :)

I love Frozen Custard!

After the race last weekend, we went to Gilles for a victory lunch! I think between the Hebels and us, we spent about $50 --- we had A LOT of  delicious food :)
For those of you that don't know what Gilles is --- you are missing out!

Here is a link to their website: http://www.gillysfrozencustard.com/

Patrick, Dusty and Anne used to all work there in high school and it is one of our favorite spots back in Fond du Lac.  I recommend a double cheeseburger "EBR Pick" (Everything but Relish with pickles), , french fries (extra cripsy) and a Mallowmint Fudge Sundae!

We thought it was only fitting that James' first taste of custard was from Gilles - he loved it!

For his first try we just went with vanilla - the banana boat in front of the boys is Patrick's!

The photo came in wide again - but I figure it just makes the custard look even more delicious!

Looking forward to going back again soon - so we can teach Jimmy James how to order his own treats!

Elkhart Lake Triathlon

Last weekend Patrick, Jeff and Dusty competed in an Olympic triathlon in Elkhart Lake, WI.

Anne, Jen and I went to cheer them on and met up with Jim Hebel and Harper as well. It was a great morning and the boys did awesome. Thanks to Ted and Carol for taking James for the morning. Guessing he had WAAAY more fun with them!

Here are a few pictures - love the excitement in joy in their faces!

Harper and Jim are great fans too - waiting for Dusty to cross the finish line!

Success! 

Patrick and Jeff have a similar picture from last year :)



Hebel Family Photo!

This group (plus a couple others) will be heading to Door County later this summer for the 1/2 Ironman.

It should be a great weekend - good food, great friends, wine...

 oh and you know... a 70.3 mile race for the guys!

(Yikes!)

Blast from the Past

So last week I was breaking down some boxes from Crate & Barrel and Patrick made the comment that they looked like break-dancing boxes in our kitchen. 

Back story: Whenever the topic of break-dancing comes up in conversation (more than you might think considering it is 2013), Patrick talks about the good ol' days on Sheboygan Street in FDL. 

Apparently there was a club called the "Sheboygan Street Breakers" that Patrick was either a member of or aspired to be a part of...

In my mind I see a little group of skinny boys with 80s short shorts and tube socks pulled up to their white boney knees spinning on their little butts on someone's washing machine delivery box... :)

Regardless of how it actually was back in the day - Patrick decided it was time for Jimmy James to take his first spin -

Pretty cute, right? 

Well a few minutes later as James is eating his dinner, Patrick disappears upstairs and returns in his velour jumpsuit (back from his football days) and other "breaker" accessories and showed us some moves!

I busted out laughing (as did Patrick) but I snapped a few more photos for you to all enjoy as well!

Funniest photo from the night --- James... thought bubble, "You wanna go? you got nuthin' on me daddy!"

"twins" for a night

Last weekend Andy, Beth and John came to Madison for the weekend while Patrick was up north fishing. Andy and Beth had a wedding to attend in Mt. Horeb, so James and I offered to watch John.

We joked that it was going to be like having twins for the night.

Considering both boys are used to all of the attention on them -

they were very good and very patient with me!

Hanging out on the chair - James kept poking John - makes me wonder how the other kids fare at day care!

Decided that 4 hours on the floor in the family room would make us all crazy, so I strapped James in the back carrier and put Johnny in the stroller and we marched around the neighborhood.  I was all ready to tell quizzical neighbors that we finally gave James a bath and the water made him multiply into a second kid - but no one stopped us or asked :(

The boys did enjoy the time out of the house and I certainly got a work out!

Dinner went pretty well too. Both boys are eating a combo of people food and baby food so I bounced back and forth, switching spoons and bowls as I went.

John has ginger cookies that I gave to the boys after dinner. This picture is him hiding his cookie from me. He just loves them and didn't want to let it go before he could shove the ENTIRE thing in his little mouth all at once! (Our feelings when it was swallowed and gone were not the same!)

Cute picture of James!

Pj's and stories!

So we have a book called the Tickle Monster and it comes with these tickling gloves.  James really loves fuzzy stuffed animals right now and naturally thought these gloves were great too.

Peekaboo!

And here is a video of the boys with the gloves.  That Johnny sure is funny!

We had a great time with John and would certainly do it again!

I am proud to say I sent a text to Andy and Beth at 8:30pm

 "We have angel babies - both are fed, clean, in bed and asleep!"  And we all slept great!

Fun on the farm

Over Memorial Day weekend we spent an hour or two at Diane and Fred's farm. Dad is working on setting up his old train set for the little boys so we needed to go get the table and all of the cars out of the farm attic.

It was a bit of a challenge to not only get it down the stairs but secure it for the trip back to the lake. But, as usual, the guys were resourceful!

Mom made the boys train hats for when they are ready to play conductor.

Buppa and James were testing them out.

While the guys were working James got to play with some of the old toys at the farm. Whether you are in your 30s or your 60s you might recognize some of these! Note the super old snowmobile goggles as well!

James got to know Daisy on an intimate level as well. Daisy was licking him any chance she got. 

There is a similar photo of me with a former Regenfuss dog - I think on the same carpet!

We also picked lilacs and rhubarb and rode the 4 wheeler.  It was a quick visit but we managed to do many of my favorite things from weekends there when I was a kid.

To round out the experience, James even had a tick crawling on his head.  :)